IMPRESSMENT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does impressment mean? 

• IMPRESSMENT (noun)
  The noun IMPRESSMENT has 1 sense:

1. the act of coercing someone into government service

  Familiarity information: IMPRESSMENT used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• IMPRESSMENT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The act of coercing someone into government service

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

impress; impressment

Hypernyms ("impressment" is a kind of...):

seizure (the taking possession of something by legal process)

Derivation:

impress (take (someone) against his will for compulsory service, especially on board a ship)

 Context examples 

He opened it with much impressment—assumed, of course—and showed a great bundle of white flowers.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I fancied she was jealous even of the saucepan on it; and I have reason to know that she took its impressment into the service of boiling my egg and broiling my bacon, in dudgeon; for I saw her, with my own discomfited eyes, shake her fist at me once, when those culinary operations were going on, and no one else was looking.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)